Tag: science fiction

Alph

Alph by Charles Eric MaineAlph
Ballantine Books, 1972
Price I paid: none

The four hundred and fifty-fourth microcytological transfer succeeded—it produced a cell with the basic forty-seven chromosomes, the masculinegenetic structure.

In other words, a living male embryo.

A special laboratory was set up for the care and growth of this embryo, known as the Alpha project. With specially trained cytologists. And special guards. Why not? The world had not seen a “man” in over 500 years.

There was no telling what the strange creature might do…

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World Without Men

World Without Men by Charles Eric MaineWorld Without Men
Ace Books, 1958
Price I paid: none

THE SEARCH FOR
THE 47th CHROMOSOME

The world of five thousand years from now was a world of only one sex—women. Love was an unnatural affair, fostered by the inhuman hand of the unseen government. Babies were created by laboratory techniques based on mass-deception.

There was one all-important project that supplied humanity’s only motive for continued existence—the struggle to re-create the male sex. Yet the very act of realizing this dream was to set up a crisis the world of women had never anticipated—and could not control!

Here is a truly unique novel which dares to discuss a scientific subject hitherto untouched by science-fiction. Slanted for the intelligent adult reader, it will be ranked with 1984 and Brave New World.

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Second Contact

Second Contact by J.D. AustinSecond Contact
Ace Science Fiction, 2001
Price I paid: 75¢

Dangling on the edge of the galaxy is Kivlan, a planet reputed to be a gracious and accommodating paradise. Even its name means tranquility—but apparently in some dead language, because when an earthship sends out a friendly hello, Kivlan immediately responds with missile fire.

Leave it to Earth to give peace one more chance—by dispatching one more ship to Kivlan. And Matt Wiener, its optimistic captain, isn’t traveling way the hell out there just to make enemies. A real straight-arrow, he’s prepared to do what it takes to keep the universe in harmony. Even if it kills them all…

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The Island Snatchers

The Island Snatchers by George H. SmithThe Island Snatchers Front
DAW Books, 1978
Price I paid: 90¢

HIBERNIA HIJACKED!

Flying machines had not yet been invented on Earth’s dimensional twin, Annwn. So Dylan MacBride thought it would be a good idea, even if a bit on the crackpot side from the viewpoint of that world’s somewhat backward Victorian viewpoint.

But when Dylan and his witch wife Clarinda tried out the machine by flying to Hibernia to attend a wild Irish wedding, they came a-cropper. For the Emerald Isle was not where it ought to be. Instead it was drifting rapidly westward under some strange power.

Now who would hijack a whole land of legends and fair lassies? And how was it done—and why?

THE ISLAND SNATCHERS is a wonderful, whacky, and adventurous tale, replete with Little People, lost races, and super-scientific perils.

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Earth Has Been Found

Earth Has Been Found by D.F. JonesEarth Has Been Found front
Dell Books, 1979
Price I paid: 90¢

THE XENOS ARE HERE

At first, the bizarre series of “cosmic skyjackings” could be hushed up by a baffled and frightened military. But aircraft continued to disappear, plucked out of the sky without warning, only to reappear months later, thousands of miles off course.

AND THEY THIRST FOR BLOOD

All too soon the reason would become horribly apparent. Earth has been found by a horde of creatures from a world that not even the wildest imagination could invent, parasitic creatures that took to their human hosts with deadly speed and bloodthirsty precision.

They were named Xenos. The word meant “strangers.” It would come to mean something much more frightening and final now that…

EARTH

HAS

BEEN

FOUND

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The Road to Corlay

The Road to Corlay by Richard CowperThe Road to Corlay front
Pocket Books, 1978
Price I paid: 90¢

On the Eve of the Fourth Millenium

a slowly-building civilization, struggling out of the rubble of the Drowning, was crushed beneath the scepter of a powerful and repressive Church.

But on the Eve of the Fourth Millenium

the sound of a magical pipe was heard, and the air was filled with songs of freedom and enlightenment.

And on the Eve of the Fourth Millenium

the Boy appeared, bringing the gift of sacrilege, a harbinger of the future, heralding the arrival of the White Bird of Dawning.

It is the coming of a New Age….

A glorious future bearing the presents of the past!

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Scavengers in Space

Scavengers in Space by Alan E. NourseScavengers in Space front
Ace Books, 1958
Price I paid: 50¢

“This fast-moving tale of the far future deals with the quest of the Hunter brothers for a mysterious bonanza located somewhere in the asteroid belt. The dangers and details of asteroid mining are carefully outlined, and the bonanza itself proves to be an open gate to wider future in the stars.

“Realistic background, good plotting, and vivid writing add up to a good adventure.”

—Cleveland Press

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Utopia Minus X

Utopia Minus X by Rex GordonUtopia Minus X front
Ace Books, 1966
Price I paid: 75¢

It took two hundred years to go to the nearest star and come back, but for astronaut Morgan Harvey it seemed but a short trip of a few months. Such is the nature of relative-time at near-light speeds.

So when Harvey got back to Earth he was still the same young patriotic Free World soldier he had been at the start of his flight. But the world he came back to was seemingly one in which his nation’s foes had triumphed and which now called itself The Perfect World.

And Utopia it certainly seemed, but Harvey refused to be brainwashed into accepting it. But until he met the man marked X, the problem of saving not only himself but humanity seemed beyond solution.

A remarkable new novel by the author of FIRST TO THE STARS.

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The Outer Fleet

The Outer Fleet by M. MatzkinThe Outer Fleet front
Manor Books, 1978
Price I paid: 25¢

It seemed to be merely a matter of time before Solonius VII, a lone solar system, would be crushed by the tyrant. Supplies and manpower were going fast. The only hope left was the “Outer Fleet,” a band of courageous guerilla warriors from the far reaches of the universe. But would the “Outer Fleet” and Solonius VII join forces in time for one last desperate stand against this overwhelming evil power?

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